Navigating a Midlife Crisis: A Couple’s Story of Transformation

How One Couple Weathered the Midlife Crisis Storm

Have you wondered what a midlife crisis looks like for a man, and how couples can navigate it? Larry Bilotta dives deep on “Relationship Revelation Radio” with Thasia, a past guest who mastered his “Environment Changer” program, and her husband Glenn. Glenn’s own midlife crisis shook their seemingly perfect marriage.

But this episode offers an inspiring twist: it’s Thasia’s journey of self-discovery that becomes the turning point.

Listen as they share how Thasia overcame negative self-talk and prioritized her well-being, ultimately strengthening their bond.

Join Larry, Thasia, and Glenn for proof that a midlife crisis doesn’t have to spell disaster. Gain valuable insights on overcoming common relationship challenges, regardless of your gender or relationship status.

Learn how they emerged stronger, both individually and as a couple.

Below is a transcript of the full interview:

Larry: Imagine for the next 60 seconds that you could sort out and virtually eliminate every problem in your most important relationships. Happiness ultimately depends on the quality of our relationships, but it can fall apart when you don’t really understand people. Remember this. There are only three relationships on earth. Intimate, social, and work.

Yet we keep making the same relationship mistakes while we keep hoping for a different result. I’m Larry Bilotta and I’m here to show you an easier way to understand people than what you’ve been led to believe. People are not as complicated as you thought, and there’s easier ways to interact with them that will take the stress out of your most difficult relationships.

That’s why every week, my guest and I will give you the tools and understanding to improve your intimate, your social, and your work relationships. I invite you to spend the next 60 minutes with me on Relationship Revelation Radio.

Since I defined the word revelation as a dramatic disclosure of something not previously known or realized. Since relationships literally make our life or break it, let’s explore what you haven’t known or realized about relationships on Relationship Revelation Radio.

Hi, this is Larry Bilotta and we are going to have a great experience today because a lot of you who have heard me before know that I am always talking about childhood. That childhood ultimately decides the quality of your marriage.

It ultimately decides how long your marriage lasts, and we can get into a lot of that in further shows. But today, I have two guests who are calling in today from Australia.

This is Thasia and Glenn, and they are a great example of what happens to people in marriages when they don’t know emotionally what is really happening to them at a real difficult time in their life. Glenn and Thasia have been married over 23 years, and this happened rather suddenly. They had a wonderful relationship, and when this thing came, we call it midlife crisis, but when it came, neither of them knew what to do, and were really unsettled. It upended their entire lives. Went into a dramatic story that what we want to talk about today is Thasia and Glenn’s take on those stories. Because Thasia has one story from her perspective and her experience, and then Glenn has the other story, and we are going to get both those stories. You don’t get that very often.

It’s pretty rare, but we’re going to be able to get that today. What I’m going to do is I want to introduce Thasia and Glenn to you. I want them to talk about their marriage first, and then I want them to talk about each of their childhoods.

What I’m going to do is I’m going to give you little highlights of my understanding, but then I want them to add to that. So Glenn and Thasia I’m really, really happy. I mean, just I’m over the moon happy with having you on the show today.

So Thasia, let me start with you. Take me back to the day, the time when you sent something was not right. Because I remember you telling me that the two of you were in love for years and years. Have a wonderful family, lots of wonderful kids. Take me back to that time when you thought everything was right with the world.

Thasia: When everything was right, um, everything was right until it wasn’t right. Everything was beautiful for 23 years. Glenn and I were madly in love. We used to always say, we’re a love story. We have what everybody wants. It was always magical.

Larry: So did you ever have a sense that something was going to go wrong? Did you have any warning that something was going wrong?

Thasia: I didn’t really know until the day Glenn broke down that it was what it was. I think we get so busy with life and work and kids and we just, we sense little things, but we sort of think, oh, it’ll be okay. It’ll be okay. It’ll be okay. It always is. And we love each other so much.

We’ll get through this. I think for 18 months before Glenn broke down, I was definitely going through something. But I think Glenn had started going through something as well. Mine was just very vocal. He was very silent.

Thasia’s Challenges

Larry: I want to talk about what you had that was going on with you, that you said it was vocal. What was happening to you that was going to lead up to this event?

Thasia: Well, we’ve got five children and they’re all adults now. I think it was a few things. Our first child left home, so that broke the family unit. It just didn’t feel the same. And as a mother, I was quite heartbroken that my son had left home and not just left home, left home for the Air Force. So moved away.

I couldn’t see him. That was one thing. I was a stay-at-home mom for 20 years. I went and got a full-time job. So I was gone 12 hours a day, five days a week. Glenn had started a new job, which was high pressure and was very wrapped up in his career for the first time in 23 years.

Larry: Let’s take those three things, because I think everybody can relate to this. Son moves away. First child to move away. The second thing is you take a full-time job after not working outside the home, and then your husband goes into a high-pressure job, which he’s not had to deal with. And these all happen at the same time within the space of how many months? Three months or two months?

What is the time frame for these events?

Thasia: Yeah, pretty much all just happened at the same time. It all fell in the place within the space of three months.

Larry: Now, Glenn, I want you to talk about what this time was like for you. What was happening to you from your perspective and how you saw Thasia and how she treated you? What changed for you?

Glenn: Obviously, I did go into a high-pressure job, but it was a challenge, and it was enjoyable at the time. It was something totally brand new. I think probably there was also a bit of ego involved in that I actually got head-hunted for the job. So you’re always feeling that that’s pretty good, but then coming with that is the reputation of, you’ve got to achieve, you’ve got to succeed, and also while getting paid very well.

So there’s an expectation that you have to give to receive. It was a lot to take in, but it was always good, if you know what I mean, from a career point of view, which I’d never really been in that spot before. Unfortunately, and I wasn’t recognizing this at the time either, Thasia got herself into a spot where some behaviors, which I’d always thought a question got more and more amplified. I recognized that she was struggling with the fact that our son had left, but then there were other things that she was struggling with that I didn’t know about. So that was probably for me where things aren’t great at home either. So I think work, I thought trying myself into work, given the fact that I’d now taken this job and I had things to prove. That’s probably where I was at.

Larry: And that was a dramatic change for you to go into that kind of role. This is new, but while you go into this new kind of role, this high-pressure job, you’re putting lots of energy into that job while you’re watching Thasia getting upset and undone by what’s happening to her. Right? Is that what you’re saying?

Glenn: That’s pretty much exactly what happened.

Larry: So Glenn, was Thasia getting upset towards you or is she just getting upset apart from you?

Glenn: From my perspective, and this is not looking at Thasia, just looking at what I saw. I couldn’t explain the behavior, I couldn’t explain the anxiety, I couldn’t explain the aggression, I couldn’t explain the vocalization of that aggression. I couldn’t explain all of it. So to me, I just couldn’t get a grasp on why.

Larry: But you also couldn’t talk about it either, could you?

Glenn: Not really, because I used the phrase that my mother always used when I was growing up, called keep the peace. You know, I’d keep the peace because while I was happy and why everything was OK, you’d maintain that and hold on for that for as long as you can. You wouldn’t sort of wake the sleeping giant if you know what I mean.

Larry: Yes. Thasia, what Glenn’s talking about, he needs to keep the peace, he’s programmed to keep the peace from his own childhood and also, by the way he’s motivated. What was happening to you that you could not see what was coming out of you emotionally? How do you say I couldn’t see it?

Thasia: I could see it, but I didn’t see what it was doing to everybody around me. I thought I was upset with myself. That’s how I felt all of the time. I felt like I wasn’t good enough. That’s childhood programming too.

Larry: Thasia, I want to bring up this point on the childhood issue. And I want to introduce the childhood issue for the two of you by starting with this little snapshot of the two of you, because the two of you have like a matching kind of childhood event. Glenn’s sister was born very, very sick and his parents had to literally give so much of their lives and energy to going to the hospital and just real dramatic things. And in your childhood, you had a sister that actually died when you were five years old. And that death in your family caused your parents to fall apart into all kinds of terrible things. And so the two of you have this one thing in common. You were both facing traumatic things in your childhood that Thasia, I don’t imagine the two of you ever talked about that years ago. That was just history and that it would never ever bother you again. Right? Did you ever talk about that with Glenn about your two traumatic childhoods, these events?

Thasia: Well, we talked about it. We’ve always talked about it. We’ve always known it, but we didn’t see it as dramatical programming. That was just our life.

Glenn: Yeah, I agree with Thasia there. They’re very like that’s just your life. So you don’t necessarily think about it in any other way than that. It’s funny you just saying Thasia’s sister died when she was five. And when I was that age, my sister was born. So it’s only just occurred to me now what you’re saying is right. Like our childhoods do mirror each other in that way because we not only had our sister born and she was unwell and then obviously all the things that went with that, but we then had to move because we lived in the Malaysia at the time.

So then we then had to move countries within months and months after being born. Oh, yeah. Which obviously, you know, there’s a trauma that goes along with the upheaval of that. And it only just to occurred to me, that it happened to both Thasia and I at the same time, it’s upheaval of something in our lives.

Thasia: Glenn and I, our childhoods are very mirrored. Glenn and I are both the eldest children. So both felt the need to take care of our parents or take care of our family when our parents couldn’t.

Larry: That’s right. Both of you end up taking care of other children and household because of that. What you don’t know is that you could interpret this into something that’s coming in the future. And this is the, the, really the story of all midlife crisis.

Midlife Crisis Explained

How It Started

Midlife crisis begins in the first 10 years when you’re traumatized by abuse or neglect or trauma or any of these dark energies. It’s going to be with you for a lifetime. The question is, when is it going to come? It’s going to come when an event sets it off and it’s going to come in a way you do not connect to your childhood literally ever. Thasia, in your childhood, your dad left your mom, I think. Is that right?

Thasia: He’s left three or four times in my last time, but they’re together now. But they’re very, it’s a volatile relationship. Even now it’s there.

Larry: Yes. But if we go back, because we’re talking about the time your brain was forming, that’s why that matters so much. But your mom became very critical, very cynical. And, and that, that cynicalness, that hardness, that criticalness literally showed up in you by surprise. And Glenn, you did not know that the programming that she received in the first 10 years from her mother was ever going to come out on you ever.

Glenn: Never saw that coming in. I could never understand it.

Larry: What happens is, Thasia, your mother, your mother’s energy, because I don’t want to call it her behavior. It’s this energy in her that made her critical and cynical and so on, came out in you, onto yourself, and you didn’t know what it was. But if we look at the changes, and this is the principle that we want to show here, the how you’re motivated, how you’re programmed, the little voice inside your head, what is that little voice inside your head? It is the pain of your childhood and it has a life of its own. Thasia, would you agree that that came out right then?

Thasia: Oh, definitely. Glenn was living with my mother.

Larry: Glenn, do you like that? The sound of that? Glenn was living with my mother.

Glenn: Well, it’s funny. I never thought of it that way. But a couple of months ago, Thasia gave me an analogy of imagining her mother living with my father and, oh, everything sticks in my head there. And I just went, oh, my God.

Larry: Let’s take a break here. This is a relationship revelation radio with Larry Bilotta. We are visiting with Glenn and Thasia, who have gone through what could only be called the midlife crisis, but theirs has unique parts to it. If you have anything resembling the midlife crisis happening in your life at all, or even happening in somebody’s life that you care about, you really want to hear the rest of this story, a great story, because it teaches so much. The fact that we have the two of them who were happily married, all of this falls apart and they go through this terrible time of separation. And then they come back together. That’s who we’re talking to. We’re talking to the two people who actually came back together. After all that, it’s a wonderful message of hope.

I’ve talked about the childhood of the two of you and how you have Glenn, your sister’s born very sick. You have to move. You could go to the hospital at any minute.

The foundation of midlife crisis

Your life is in upheaval. You have to become like very parent-like. And Thasia, it happens when your sister dies. You have to become very parent-like, start taking care of the twins. And so the pattern has been set for what’s going to happen in your adult life, in your intimate relationship. You had these matching childhood experiences where you have to become an adult when you’re still a child. And when you have to become an adult, when you’re still a child, that’s such something in motion that you don’t understand, aren’t aware of, have no warning about.

But in your intimate relationship, that energy that’s created in those 10 years while your brain is forming is going to come for you. And Thasia, as you said, it came for me and I had no idea what was happening to me. I didn’t know what I sounded like. I didn’t know how I was affecting anybody. Kind of what you’d say. You couldn’t know.

And then Glenn, let’s go to what happened to you. This pressure that’s happening to her, which is pressure coming from her childhood, is now coming out of her because, you know, a child leaves home and she’s working full time and all these things that you’re under this pressure. She doesn’t know how to calculate all these changes fast enough, clean enough. And so something starts happening to you because you’re in the high pressure job. And so how do you start changing and dealing with this pressure from the job, the pressure from your wife? What’s happening to you? Talk about that.

Glenn: I probably, I go back to what I said before, you just keep the peace. And unfortunately, part of that keeping the peace is that you’re withdrawing emotionally when things get hard. I would just carry on. If Thasia had an episode where she was highly emotional. I would do everything to calm the situation down, but then you would swallow it down and I’d deal with, is Thasia angry at me or is Thasia aggressive to the kids or whatever was going on. And then you’d sort of try to allay that so that it cooled and keep that peace. But then I was having turmoil in my head and I was just pushing that, pushing that down constantly. And the more Thasia had the aggression periods and the more I would just push it back down and keep the peace again, because I came to loathe the screaming and the shouting. And so I wouldn’t allow myself to do it.

Larry: Okay. So that means you’re burying what’s happening to you. When the job kept creating pressure, what kind of pressure did it create on you? Was it something that you might fail or you might disappoint or what kind of pressure was that job pressure?

Glenn: I learned a couple of years ago that one of the things that drives me is achievement. It’s not so much financial gain as much as achievement. So with this job, you’re sort of on this treadmill of constantly having to perform and achieve. You feel for a few instance, the gratification of achieving something, but then you set a new task and a new goal and off you go again and again and again. And it’s only now on reflecting back that I realized how unrealistic a lot of the pressure that was put on me was. It would be also fair to say though that at that time drive to achieve was a goal.

If it was appealing, I would obviously devote time to it and I never would switch off from it. I mean, I never did that. So obviously that creates pressure from, you know, relationship between Thasia and myself, but also because you constantly have the personification of your working life, not your real life, you then start to have this persona. It isn’t you, but it is you some of the time to me, it would be like trying to be the president of the United States. That’s sort of what I felt like it was. You have this persona all of the time and perception of how you are. And the more you do it, the better you become at it. But of course, it’s not you.

Larry: Yes, it’s not you. Glenn, just on the heels of that, if you could have done something, if you could have solved the problem when it was gaining momentum, if you could have, what do you think you would have wanted to do with Thasia to stop this snowball from rolling?

Glenn: I tried a few times, but, you know, I was a nurse for 10 years and I dealt with various different situations and patients and so forth. So I was aware of mental health issues. I was aware of lots of different things that people go through. My problem was I could never figure it out. At that point in time, probably six months before the breakdown, I was constantly reading philosophy books or relationship books and trying to figure out but I couldn’t figure it out.

Everything that they talked about and they said didn’t actually add up with Thasia. I couldn’t work out the best way to deal with it. And unfortunately, when you’re trying to calculate something, when you’re under pressure and then you’re actually slowing down, how you really feel a lot of the time to keep things going, something’s going to give.

Larry: Yes, something is going to give, Thasia, how would you say it if you could have stopped this troubled momentum from happening? What would you have wanted to do?

Thasia: Without knowing that I was being controlled or programmed for my childhood? I was trying to fix things. I would say to Glenn a few times, let’s leave our jobs, let’s move away.

This isn’t making us happy. He was so wrapped up in his job and his career that it was making me worse because I was craving the attention. I was craving our marriage that we’d had before. I was craving the way Glenn had always been, but he was slowly, slowly changing with that job. And my role as mother had changed. I just felt like I didn’t know who I was at that time without Glenn, seeing Glenn and without my kids. That’s all I’d known.

The Identity Crisis

Larry: This is a really great point. If you look at the change that you both faced, your identity as a mother, his identity as a provider, just at the core of those, that was just a gigantic change that you couldn’t understand. You weren’t ready for it. Lots of people have had changes happen, a bankruptcy, a death in the family, a child moving away, moving across five states to take a new job, a new life. All these things, they get the ball rolling, they get the momentum from childhood started. And if you have abuse, abandonment, neglect, kind of energy in your childhood, that is the day that it’s going to come. And this story is just another version of it because your identity as a mother, Glenn’s identity as a provider, were now just thrown up in the air. Once that happened, look what you could not do. Glenn could not come to you and say, Thasia, we’re in these situations we didn’t ask for.

We didn’t really want our children to leave the house. I didn’t really want to step into this super high pressure job, but we have to remember that we are connected. We care about each other and we know what this trouble is. This trouble is just something that’s dramatically different, but we need to get nicer to each other, not meaner. We need to get closer to each other, not farther away.

How to Survive a Midlife Crisis

Thasia began the Environment Changer course

Now this brings us to the subject of that little voice inside my head. And Thasia, you took my environment change your course and learned about these, you know, how you’re motivated, how you’re programmed, how to show off a little voice inside your head. And it was a struggle when you started the course. It was a struggle to learn these principles of how is my programming affected me? You know, what’s this little voice inside my head actually doing to my behavior? How does it work?

All those kinds of things. Talk about the process that you started to learn and how difficult it was. Because Glenn, then I want to come and get the story about your snapping point, that fence post story. So Thasia, start on the struggle once you entered the course and what you were learning. That was so hard.

Thasia: I think in the beginning, because Glenn had the breakdown, I was just like, it’s all him, it’s all him, it’s all him. I still at that point couldn’t see what needed to be addressed with myself.

And I think I was focusing too much on my husband’s left me. I’m heartbroken. I just want him back.

And so when I started your course, it was all about, I just want my husband back. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that my childhood programming had had that much play in it, or that bigger role in it. All Glenn’s childhood programming. Until I learned about childhood programming, until I learned that I needed to be me for me and not be dependent.

I mean, when you’re married at 18 and you’ve been married for 23 years, you’re very dependent on another person. And Glenn was my savior. Glenn, every time before that, I’d had little meltdowns or my childhood programming had come out, Glenn would pick me up and put me back together. And without him, I felt like I couldn’t do that.

Larry: Wow, that is wonderful. So you kind of like saw Glenn as your like emotional hospital, didn’t you?

Thasia: Yes, yes, he was. He always was. He was my strength. He was my partner in life, my partner with everything we did. But yeah, when I fell apart, there were times where I’d be with my family and the whole family’s energy would come out. And Glenn was always the one next to me going, it’s all right.

You know, you’re not like them or you don’t have to listen to their criticism. Yeah. So without him, I didn’t know how I was going to deal with that, that childhood programming and the energy of my mother.

Larry: Now here’s a great point. What you just said, here’s a woman who is emotionally relying on her husband to be a rock of emotional stability. Is that what you’re saying?

Yes. And you’ve always wanted him to be that rock of emotional stability. And Glenn, you were the rock of emotional stability. You were the peacekeeper. And was that a part of this burden to you? Of you had to be her emotional hospital?

Glenn: Look, I think there was a couple of things. It’s interesting. I just stopped with her parents and a family. I particularly remember one event. It was New Year’s Eve. It’s probably why I actually never liked New Year’s Eve. But there was one event where Thasia’s mother was being absolutely atrocious, critical towards her. And it got so bad that I actually I could not keep my calm demeanor any longer.

And I snapped, it’s funny when aggressive people get challenged by someone that’s usually not aggressive. I think sometimes it’s a big shock. Oh, yes. And in that particular occasion, I was very angry, laid bare, the cold hard facts of actually what I thought. And to me, in hindsight, that was the day where things changed for me emotionally.

With Thasia’s mother, not necessarily her family, but mother, because I could not understand why you would ever say such terrible things to your daughter. And I think from that point onwards, I definitely became that emotional warf for Tasia, where she could pull in and have somewhere to tie up to and feel stability.

Larry: That was a big starting point to you being this emotional hospital for her.

Glenn: I think if I look back and reflect on it back when I have done from that point onwards, it was where I actually found that Thasia’s emotional dependency on my rock solid firmness was probably where it was. It got amplified.

Larry: And once again, you are listening to a relationship, revelation radio with Larry Bilotta and my guests are Glenn and Tasia from Australia, who are sharing with us the story of their emotional meltdown after 23 years of a wonderful marriage, their dramatic, dramatic separation, which lasted a very long time for them, a very long time.

And they’re telling us the story of how it happened. Thasia, let me go back to with Glenn being this guy you could always rely on for emotions. Glenn, just mentioning this going to a head with your mother, this big confrontation, which he never did. He was not a confronter. What he was doing is he was confronting your programmer.

And your mother, we don’t want to make her the bad guy in the story, she was just doing what was done to her in the previous generation. Thasia, right? Yes. What do you know about what happened to your mom and her childhood?

Thasia: I don’t know too much actually. My mother’s mother was the sweetest woman on the planet. I was extremely close to my grandmother and more than wanting to be like my mother growing up I wanted to be like my grandmother. My grandfather was a hard man but still I adored my grandfather so I don’t know too much really about my mother’s childhood and I know that she was raped as a teenager by her uncle.

Okay, that’s trauma. Yes, but other than that I know that her older sister was always the golden child. She’s a middle child so her older sister was beautiful and always attracted the attention and then her youngest was, you know, my grandfather always loved the boys in the family more than the girls type thing. So I’m sure there was, there’s reasons why she is the way she is. I don’t know too much but that’s really all I can say.

Childhood Programming

Larry: I want to make a point about this. This is so instructional. Your mother in your childhood seemed very critical and very angry and cynical and that’s what came out on you. Now where did that come from? It came from her childhood. The first 10 years when her brain was forming and what was going on.

These highlights that you just glanced over like a middle child, not the prettiest one, got, you know, the boy got the praise, the older sister got the praise. You know, whatever your story is of your childhood and you look at your programmer, go back and look at their childhood. You will see the pain, the abuse, neglect is going to come right through generation to generation.

And this is an astounding, astounding story. The ugliness of each family’s energy goes right through the sperm and the egg and grows right up into the person. And that’s why adopted people are not changed by their adopted parents.

They are literally affected by the biology carrying energy that becomes what you end up doing in your intimate relationship. And that’s where this stuff comes out. Glenn, let me come back to you because I want to talk about the day this snapped and I’m getting from all that you’re saying is that pressure is building in you, not just from your job, but when you come home and you see Thasia and you’re getting Thasia’s mother’s energy coming out on you. A day happens when it just snaps and you can’t be the keep it in, keep the peace guy. Talk about that, that fence post moment.

Suddenly, Glenn Snapped

Glenn: After the shop, I came home and when I came back in the door all I could see was Thasia screaming and she was screaming at one of our sons. And I remember just sort of crumpling as I walked in the door, just going, oh, what now?

Like what’s, I’ve only been gone like 15 minutes and come back and something was wrong. And I used to always take these things to heart, but I actually remember this day and this whole 48 hour period I walked in the door, put the groceries on the counter and I remember taking a big breath and then it was like diving into, you know, shark infested borders. I walked downstairs, you know, Thasia was very emotional, son was also emotional. Thasia got darker and darker over the night throughout the night and very upset, which I understood that it was really, really taking the last of all of the energy I had left just to maintain and get through that. She had a, you know, emotional charged night.

I think from memory she’d woken up crying throughout the night, but it was clear that Thasia was very upset. I got up the next morning and I actually had the day off. I went outside and I was going outside, used to be my release.

I would actually go outside and work and do something physical outside and that would always sort of reset me, but it had been traumatic week to week before because a colleague of mine who was the same age as me had passed away, rather unexpectedly. And I was outside and I was actually putting up a fence. You know, I was doing all of the things that reset me emotionally and calmed me down and my wedding ring got caught on the top of the fence and broke. And I just remember, I break.

Larry: So what happened to you at that moment?

Glenn: I just remember images really because from that moment on, I was sort of cast adrift really from that moment on.

Larry: So you clearly were no longer yourself after that moment?

Glenn: I felt like, if I think about it now, it’s emotionally upsetting me now. I feel like I’ve lost my compass, you know, all of the things that worked, no longer worked and I lost it.

I cried, I screamed, I raged, I did just everything. I remember, I remember my wedding ring getting caught on the fence, post and breaking. Then I just remember images. I remember looking at my foot, walking up the stairs across the grass into the house and then just, you know, standing in front of Thasia and saying, I can’t do this anymore.

Larry: Now Thasia, what happened to you at that moment?

Thasia: Well, I didn’t know anything was wrong. We were fine. Like Glenn had 10 minutes beforehand. Glenn had was very normal, kissing me, kiss my neck, made me a cup of coffee, handed it to me as usual, kissed my neck, said, you smell good. I’m just going outside to do some things. You know, what time are we leaving? And I said, yep, fine, go, whatever.

I’m, you know, then have a shower and whatever. Then 10 minutes later, he came in shaking, crying, having a breakdown. Well, he came in really calmly at first and took my hand and then I could look at him and thought he was, he thought he was crying. And I said, what’s wrong, babe? And he was just like, I don’t love you. I’m leaving you. And I was like, no, you’re not.

Larry: Yeah, there it is. Thasia, do you know, did you know anything was wrong about your, what was coming out of you in the day before that Glenn was describing? Did you even know that it was, you were that upset? Your son was that upset? All the stuff that he’s, he’s absorbing. Did you know that it was all that bad?

Thasia: No, I was just angry with myself and my workload and, you know, whatever was going on. I didn’t know that I raged the way I did. I couldn’t even make sense that that’s what I was doing. And I mean, when I went to bed that night, I knew I was crying and upset and Glenn was holding me and saying, and I was just saying, I don’t know if I can do this anymore. I felt like I was drowning in my emotions, but I thought Glenn was fine. Glenn was so loving towards me the night before. So loving and holding me.

Larry: So there’s, there’s the picture of him doing what he always did, taking it from you, absorbing it. He was your hospital, wasn’t he?

Thasia: Yeah, yeah. And he did. Yeah.

Larry: But you didn’t know, you didn’t know what a toll it would take on him to carry this, did you? No. But he did carry it and he carried it like a peace guy, you know, a guy who doesn’t like conflict and he absorbs it and, and tries to remove conflict, but it’s coming into him.

And what was actually happening to Glenn, although you had no way of processing this, is that the childhood that he was given through no fault of his own, through no fault of his parents. But when his sister was born so sick and absorbed all of their attention, he had to literally give up his childhood. He had to literally give it up and become a child who does the work of an adult, both physically and emotionally.

And there was a great price to pay when he did that. But what happens when he gets into his adult life, if he has to start taking on more emotional trauma, and who does he get to marry? He gets you and your mother who gave you emotional trauma. So now Glenn is going to carry the, I lost my childhood and he’s going to carry and you lost yours. And I’m going to bear both of our childhoods, lack our loss because we couldn’t be children.

We can never be children. We always have to work. We always have to survive. You know, so Glenn has to carry all of that. And this is the day that he couldn’t carry it anymore. And I make that, I make that big point because this is how midlife crisis happens. No one can see how it happens because, you know, when you’re in the thick of it, you’re the last one to see it. The last one to be able to analyze it. And Glenn, you actually were reading a lot and studying, weren’t you?

Glenn: I had, I’d been, you know, Thasia used to come in and talk about, you know, this book or that book or we should read this and I’d look them up and I was looking up Freud and I was looking up psychology and I was looking up all sorts of things because I couldn’t figure it out.

What Glenn Really Wanted

And it’s funny, I know we’ll probably get to this, but every time we talk, Thasia and I talk something clicks and more of the puzzles are just sort of pieces of the puzzle are dropping in place. But to me, what I’ve now realized, you know, having gone through all of that and now looking back, I was talking to people and people were trying to support me that had been through a divorce. But what I now recognize was that they were trying to help me from a divorce factor and going through that. Whereas, you know, even though, you know, that was what we were saying, what was happening.

That was what I was saying. I wanted, it wasn’t actually what I wanted, nor was it was actually what I was going through. I was going through separation and saying I was going to end my marriage. But at the core of all of that was everything that we’re talking about where Thasia and I were both going through that program and that we had as kids and what we do. And it was that that was actually going on, not necessarily a lack of love for my wife.

Larry: Yes, absolutely. Thasia, let’s go back to you’re in the program. You’re learning about childhood. You’re learning how you’re motivated, how Glenn’s motivated. You’re also learning about the little voice inside your head. Talk about what the turning point was for you. Because I know as you were going through the program, it was a struggle to learn what you were learning, struggle to apply it, go to the breakthrough point for you.

What, what actually hit you finally? I mean, so people understand, kind of give them a before while you were struggling with the little voice inside your head that we all have. And then the breakthrough when you finally were able to eliminate the little voice inside your head.

Thasia: I think from memory, Larry, it was about six months. It took me to, of doing the course to finally get it. I mean, it was slowly building. I was slowly understanding childhood programming, understanding that I’m not my mother’s pain, understanding that I’m not the pain of my childhood, understanding where Glenn was coming from, understanding how to get rid of the voice in your head, but also understanding that I didn’t need Glenn to save me, that I was going to save myself.

Larry: That was a huge thing. That was a huge thing.

Thasia: I knew I didn’t need Glenn, but I wanted him. When I didn’t need him and I was quite capable as a woman by myself. That’s when it clicked with me.

Larry: Let me remind you again that you are listening to relationship, revelation, radio, and I am Larry Bilotta. And we are here getting the story of a marriage that was transformed through the trauma of the midlife crisis. If you haven’t heard the entire interview, I really encourage you to listen to it because this is a real game changer, what you’re hearing here. Because all we’re hearing in the world is that if you’re not happy, you need to run away. They don’t know why they’re running away.

I’ve got a call on my desk. A lady is married to a guy. It’s his fourth marriage. She’s married after six years on his fourth marriage. She doesn’t know why.

Nobody knows why. Why are we losing our intimate relationships? Why do we got to go out and find another one and start over and not even getting into what’s happening to the children you have when you run away? What is this doing to the next generation and the new generation after that? No one’s thinking about that because when these midlife crisis hit, as you’re hearing from Glenn and Thasia, when they hit, you have no understanding of what is happening to you. Thasia, take us through a little bit of the learning process.

What is the learning process of what you were discovering? Well, Glenn is off running away. He’s trying to find his relief. I mean, who could blame him? And you’re trying to find out what happened. What’s the highlights of this learning process that you learned in the course?

Thasia: Well, the highlights. When I just felt free, I felt like something had been lifted from me that was heavy and that I’d been carrying my whole life. I just felt, I don’t know, it might sound strange. I felt like my heart was totally open for the first time ever in my life. And when people started treating me differently, like my children and other people, life just became light and free.

And my husband was still not talking to me, so it had nothing to do with him. It was to do with how I was in the world. I was a different person than I have been for my whole life.

Larry: That is a dramatic statement.

Thasia: I felt like I was five again. I felt like I’d gone back to the day before my sister died. That’s how I felt when I had you.

Midlife Crisis Awakening

Larry: So it’s like your childhood was set right, in other words. That’s what it sounds like you’re saying. Glenn, from you on the receiving end of Thasias’ transition, what are you seeing? When did you first see it? How did it affect you?

Glenn: I don’t know why this is the case, but for me it always seems to be extreme. I actually remember the moment. It was the day after our, we had triplets and it was the day after their birthday. And I’d come up to have dinner all of us together.

I’d say to Thasia, it makes sense if we all had dinner together because it’s so hard to get everyone together. And I wasn’t living at home and I wasn’t waking up the next day. And I opened my eyes and I went, what’s different? And I had one of those moments where you go wallet, keys, anger with Thasia. And the anger was gone and it was gone. And it was, it was that pivotal in that I just went, oh my God, it’s gone.

Larry: That, when you’re saying the anger, Glenn, you’re talking about this whole just burying energy, this runaway energy that was possessing you. That’s what you’re saying was gone.

Glenn: Oh yeah. And just like Thasia talks about, you know, she felt like she was free and then gone back to being a child and being five. I actually just felt like all of a sudden there was no more white noise or fog in front of me and the anger was gone. And it was only when it was gone that I realized it was so devastatingly dominant. And from that moment on, I could see Thasia again. I, when I first met Thasia, she was this, you know, wonderful girl. And from that moment on, I could see that again. And I never thought I would ever, I never, ever thought Thasia would be that person again.

I honestly didn’t. I, you know, if there was even a minuscule, you know, tether of hope, I would have not have left our marriage, but I could not see it. I could not see it.

Midlife Crisis Help

It only takes one to heal a marriage

Larry: Now you, you’re hearing Glenn, this is such a, I want to make, I want to take this, these words, Glenn, that you’re saying, I could not see it. What could I not see? I could not see the woman she really was. Now, why could Glenn not see the woman that Thasia really was? Because when the little voice inside your head, who has got a life of its own, comes from your childhood to get you, you’re not yourself anymore.

You can’t be yourself anymore. And it literally becomes an energy that’s just like a, it’s got a blast radius, which Glenn literally was transformed by. And then his childhood pain came for him. Her childhood pain came for her. And this whole separation and all of the, the ugliness that happened as a result of the separation, the two of you were being controlled, this childhood pain, which is governed by that little voice inside your head.

To Save Your Marriage, Heal Yourself First

And that’s what brings me to this, you know, one point. It only takes one to heal a marriage. It only takes one. And in this case, it happened to be Thasia. And Glenn, earlier, you told me something about the phrase, it only takes one to heal a marriage. I forgot what the point you were making, but you like that idea?

Glenn: I find it ironic that, you know, where I feel like I always prop Thasia up and always supported her emotionally. When I went through something, which I’m only now just starting to understand, I mean, it was literally like a personality of my life, everything. And I never, ever, ever thought for a second that Thasia would be able to right what was going on and in truth, I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t understand. I didn’t have the pieces of the puzzle. When Thasia did it, I was astounded and have said this previously in the past, Thasia was going to be there then I was to. Honestly, that’s, I honestly do. The first time that I saw Thasia was back. I came back. Yes. Something I had a choice about, Larry. It just happened.

Larry: It just, yeah, because you weren’t controlling it. And ultimately, Thasia, your transformation, which took, how long do you think this took from the time it took from day one of the meltdown? What was it a year? How long was it?

Thasia: The separation was 10 months, Larry. It was 10 months. 10 months, sort of. October was break down and Glenn woke up out of it on the 29th of August.

Larry: 29th of August. You did this and what Glenn is doing is he’s verifying that you saved him, didn’t you? But you couldn’t have saved him if you didn’t save yourself.

Glenn: That’s right. And do you know what, Larry? That was something I always used to say and I always used to feel. Thasia would sacrifice so much of herself for everyone else. She never left any part of herself and I could never get through to Thasia. You know, don’t you think sometimes that you should just stop worrying about everybody else. And just, you know, give back to yourself.

Larry: So Thasia, you’re the girl who saved the guy and most divorces are in Western culture, are filed by women. They’re not, you know, they’re not filed by men. And so as a woman who saved the guy, what do you want to say to women who would hear you?

Thasia’s Advice for Women

Thasia: Don’t give up on your man. Too many people and I’ve got many friends. We’ve got many friends the same age, separated around us at the same time. And none of them can believe we’re back together.

But a lot of them were like three months out of their marriage and they’re in another relationship and, you know, they just bounce around trying to be happy. And I just sort of think I knew what I had. I didn’t want anything else. So for one, don’t give up that easily. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of pain. Pain helped me get where I needed to be.

Learn to want your man, not NEED your man

And another thing is that you don’t need each other. Wanting each other is different than meeting each other.

Larry: So Thasia, you’re making that point that you should want the man. You shouldn’t need him because the moment you need him, a dependency is created that isn’t good for both of you.

Thasia: I think it’s very attractive in a woman to be able to look after herself, do what she needs to do herself. It’s attractive to be your own woman, be your own person.

Larry: So that’s your advice. You need to be your own person, but you don’t have to lose your man over it. Right? No, that’s right.

What Brought Glenn Home?

Glenn: I think also, Larry, you can understand that like I was, I was actually attracted to Thasia’s independence when we first met. Thasia was an artist. She was in art school back then and she was painting. And I remember days where we were dating and she’d actually asked me to go home so that she could paint. And I found this incredibly, incredibly attractive.

I always found that really attractive because she had her own thing. Thasia didn’t need me. Oh yeah. I find it incredible that, you know, after 10 months of separation where we would have not have seen each other for longer than, you know, 20 minutes.

And if I think if you added up all of the time back to back together over that whole 10 month period, you’d be lucky to come up with 24 hours of time where we were actually together. Yet, the minute that I sensed that Thasia was, I keep saying back to herself, but I don’t. It wasn’t the Thasia went backwards.

She went forwards to become who she was always going to be. At the minute I sensed that and saw that, then I could be back to that fog of anger did leave and it was gone instantaneously. So it’s not that we had hours of, you know, therapy together and hours of talking together and working together. It was just that once Thasia was back, I was back.

Larry: So Thasia, you have learned something in this course about life. You know how you’re motivated and you like how you’re motivated. You’ve made peace with your childhood. And finally, the whole culprit in the story, this dark little voice, this intelligent and evil little voice inside your head. You have actually finally learned to shut off, right?

Thasia: Yeah. Yeah. I got a bit scared last night. I think when you get tired, I’m so tired from organizing Christmas and shopping and getting the food and all the children are home. I’ve got all my five kids home.

I’m just exhausted and I think, I think your little voice can come up to you when you’re a little bit down and tired. But the thing is, I know now. I know.

Glenn: And we spoke about that last night, Larry. Thasia and I both went to bed and I was pretty late. And Thasia mentioned this to me. And for me, I knew how the puzzle was laid out. So it’s one of the pieces that jumped out. I knew how to put it back together and where it went. And we could talk without there being this dragging dependency of fixing. I didn’t have to fix. I just had to talk and it rectified itself.

What’s at stake if you walk away?

Larry: So that’s tremendous relationship efficiency, Glenn. But I really appreciate you doing this. And this is right around Christmas that we’re doing it. And so for you to take this time and make this international call is just I’m very, very grateful and I’m believing that your story is going to save some families. And the reason I say save some families is because when this takes you over, you cannot understand your children’s future and what you do to your children’s future. But what happens is your children, especially if they’re in those 10 years, if you walk away from the marriage, you’re literally putting in a program that you must walk away. And so you are literally guaranteeing that they must walk away from their intimate relationship.

And that means that from generation to generation, I walk away when I have trouble and millions and billions of people are walking away. You know, one of the things I’ve seen as I interview people all over the world in all cultures is that the stay married, always stay married, the Asian culture and the Indian culture always staying married was real key part of their culture. But these young people are starting to divorce.

They’re being corrupted by the Western culture and the Asians are being corrupted by the Western culture. And this divorce is spreading the wildfire simply because people do not know what the two of you now know. If you do not shut off that little voice inside your head, you will pay and you will keep on paying. The two of you have a wonderful victory story and it only takes one to do the job. It does not take two. And Glenn, I hear that you are full of gratitude for that.

Glenn: I find it interesting that the person that was emotionally the weaker and out of the 21st, 23 years of marriage was actually the one that was emotionally strong enough to save it.

Larry: But she carried through in the clutch.

Glenn: No doubt. We’ve got no doubt.

Larry: And you feel wonderful about that too. Now you can truly be yourselves. And now Glenn, what are the children saying about mom? I don’t want to ask mom that.

Glenn: The kids, the kids were saying to me, I couldn’t see yet, but about a month before, you know, everything snapped back in the way of the kids that said, mom’s, mom’s really good. She’s really good.

She doesn’t do anything like she was telling me that. And yeah, so everyone saw the change. I could see the change once the anger subsided and it was a revelation.

Larry: Well, Thasia, you have done a lot and your story will do much more. And so thank you for being a beautiful woman and having created a beautiful story, which is really a family story.

Thasia: Thank you. I couldn’t have done it without finding the cause. I know that.

Conclusion

If your husband or wife is in midlife crisis and you’re not ready to give up hope, book a call with Larry Bilotta to:

• Heal yourself first, then heal your marriage – just like Thasia did.
• Shift your inner narrative by changing the story you tell yourself about the world and your place in it.
• Rewrite your childhood script and let go of what no longer serves you.
• Develop healthier thought patterns and build resilience.

While your spouse might be experiencing a midlife crisis, it’s important to remember this is your journey too.

You have the power to create a life filled with happiness, focusing on what you can control. Don’t let outside circumstances dictate your well-being.

Book a call with Larry to take charge of your happiness and explore a proactive approach to restore your marriage.